In a conventional residential environment, a particular device called a TV decoder (or “STB”, for “Set Top Box”) is adapted for displaying a multimedia content on the screen of a television. A video on demand (“VoD”) service, rendered by the service platform, allows a user to order a content by specifying preferences in relation to this content, for example the definition in which he wishes to view the film. These preferences define a certain level of quality of service and in particular they condition the bandwidth required for the stream to be transmitted to the decoder. The service is in general billed as a function of the level of quality of service required, the bill increasing with the level of quality of service. To guarantee the level of quality of service requested throughout the distribution of the content from the service platform to the decoder, it is customary, in the residential environment, for the gateway to establish a favored link with this decoder and to reserve the resources necessary so that the required quality of service is provided on this link in such a way as to guarantee the level of quality of service for the streaming of contents. The reserving of resources thus consists in reserving a certain bandwidth and in choosing a class of service suitable for the service rendered by the platform, for example the “CBR” (“Constant Bit Rate”) mode for a video service. A favored link such as this can be defined by the residential gateway by configuration, by associating chosen quality-of-service parameters with an Ethernet socket to which the decoder is connected, or by associating these parameters with a MAC (“Media Access Control”) address corresponding to the address of the decoder. The stream conveyed between the residential gateway and the decoder, and therefore between the service platform and the decoder, then benefits from the quality of service defined by the parameters which have been chosen. Thus, for example, if the user orders a film in HD (for “High Definition”) and is billed accordingly, he is assured of viewing the film in HD on his television.
In general the residential network comprises other devices, termed “OTT” (“Over The Top”) generic devices or terminals, such as PCs (“Personal Computers”), digital tablets, etc., which access the residential gateway and which are able to access a service platform so as to order a content to be displayed on the screen of the generic terminal. However, such terminals do not have the same guarantee of quality of service as a dedicated device such as a TV decoder. It is thus not possible to define favored links for generic terminals such as these so as to guarantee a certain level of quality of service between these terminals and the network. In general, the streams arising from these terminals are processed by the gateway in “best effort” mode. This mode does not provide any differentiation between these streams and does not make it possible to guarantee a given quality of service for a particular stream, which requires for example a higher bitrate than other streams. Thus when a user executes a video on demand service on his terminal and orders a film in High Definition from a service platform, he has no guarantee that the quality of service ordered is actually provided to him, except by modifying his terminal so as to integrate specific modules, adapted for managing the quality of service on the terminal, or for controlling the quality of service of the gateway. Such a module will for example act on a video reader of the terminal (the term customarily used is “player”) so as to implement a progressive video download associated with waiting constraints.
No solution currently exists whereby an arbitrary generic terminal, that is to say one which is unmodified, is guaranteed the quality of service requested during access to a service.